


Mors Aurem Vellens

by Haeronwen



Series: AELDWS 2015 [5]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5347727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haeronwen/pseuds/Haeronwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur's going to live, if he doesn't die first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mors Aurem Vellens

**Author's Note:**

> Written for AELDWS, for the prompt "gift" and the genre "apocalypse AU".

It happens like this: the world ends, and Arthur goes looking for Eames.

It’s a little more complicated than that—aggressive virus, panic looting, asshole politicians—but this is what it comes down to, ultimately.  There’s no room for background in this new world of theirs, no time for research; up until this moment, Arthur’s life has been details,  _minutiae_ , and now it’s all about the big picture.  Careful won’t cut it any more.  Arthur doesn’t know if there’s a place for him in a world where no one’s running point, but if there is he knows with sudden, breath-stealing certainty it’ll be with Eames.

Arthur’s going to live, if he doesn’t die first.

-

They’re criminals.  They have plenty of contingency plans.  They didn’t plan for this.  They couldn’t have predicted absolute, technological blackout.  They couldn’t have known that all the money they have in reserve would be worthless.  Arthur might as well be stumbling in the dark.

He’s already on the road when the riots start breaking out, bag on the passenger seat—up and left everything the moment the power died, while the people in the neighbouring apartments were still scrambling for candles and trying phone lines.  Arthur is out of the door and into the car without a second thought for his grandmother’s quilt or the Turner in the bathroom.

If he’s ever going to find Eames, he’ll need the head start.

-

Eames has a gift, a talent for living that Arthur lacks.  His shirts are permanently crumpled, his skin’s a mess of scars and ink, but he bleeds and he fights and he  _fucks_ like he’s present, always, right in the moment.  If anyone can survive this, thrive in this mess of a landscape, it’s Eames.

This is what Arthur tells himself as he crosses the border, as he keeps driving, as he pulls over to roll a loaded die on the hood of the rental car he never actually rented, for once unsure if he wants the five.  This is what he tells himself the night he falls asleep in the passenger seat and wakes to the press of steel against his throat.

-

It’s like swimming upstream.  Everyone’s trying to get out of the city, and Arthur just wants to get in.  Last he heard, before everything went to hell, Eames was in Rio—“Come join me, won’t you, darling?”—and this is the closest safe house.  He wouldn’t wager on Eames staying put, but it’s a start and if he has to check every bolthole on this continent and the next he will.

Of all the things Arthur has never allowed himself to have, Eames is the one that he won’t give up.

-

Sixty-seven days and five safe houses later Arthur finds Eames curled up in a mess of old newspapers, staring at a dead cell-phone.

Eames says, “Better late than never.”

Arthur lives.


End file.
